One million pensioners still in jobs to make ends meet - and 270 more join the workforce every day

Nearly one million pensioners are now employed in Britain with 270 people above the retirement age joining the workforce every day.

Office for National Statistics figures show 959,000 of those aged 65 and above are working, of which 585,000 are men and 374,000 women.

Over the past year the number has jumped by around 100,000, equal to around 270 pensioners every day.

Grey army: Pensioners are joining the workforce again in the financial squeeze.

Nearly 10 per cent of those who are 65 and above now have a job, with experts saying the number is almost guaranteed to keep on rising as the Government presses ahead with controversial plans to increase the State pension age. Many pensioners choose to work but others simply cannot afford to stop.

Neil Duncan-Jordan, from the National Pensioners’ Convention, said: ‘The vast majority are ordinary, working-class people who are having to take jobs because they can’t make ends meet any other way.’

At present, a man can start to claim his State pension at the age of 65 and a woman can claim hers at the age of 61 and around four months.

But by 2020 the State pension age for both men and women will be 66, rising to 67 by 2028 before rising to 68 and beyond in future years.

The news came in a generally upbeat snapshot of the the jobs market yesterday that confirmed unemployment is falling at its fastest pace for more than a decade – defying gloomy predictions that it was set to sky-rocket due to the anaemic economic recovery.

Overall, unemployment fell by 82,000 between August and October to 2.51million, the biggest drop since the recession began and the largest fall since 2001.

The total number of workers across the public and private sector, including many who are self-employed, has hit 29.6million, the largest workforce since records began in 1971.

One economist yesterday said the figures represent a ‘phenomenal achievement’, given the country’s weak economic performance amid fears of a triple-dip recession.

Andrew Goodwin, senior economic adviser to the accountant Ernst & Young’s Item Club, said: ‘These are phenomenal achievements given the economy has flat-lined over the last year.’

Over the past year, the number of private sector workers has jumped by 627,000 – while the number of public sector workers has dropped by 128,000. The figures exclude the effect of the ‘reclassification’ of 196,000 workers in English sixth forms and further education colleges from the public into the private sector earlier this year.

The public sector is now the smallest it has been for a decade, employing 5.7million – while the private sector has hit 23.9million.

This means the private sector is managing to create jobs nearly five times faster than the State workforce is being cut by the Government’s austerity drive.

Employment Minister Mark Hoban said: ‘Once again, these figures show that the private sector is creating far more jobs than are being lost in the public sector. It is a credit to British businesses that they’re proving wrong those cynics who claimed the private sector wouldn’t be able to step up.’

Changes in the number of people employed in the public and private sectors between September 2011 and September 2012, seasonally adjusted.

Despite the goods news, the jobs
market still has a way to go to recover all the ground lost since the
start of the credit crunch and through the subsequent recessions.

Between
August to October 2007 and August to October 2012 the number of
unemployed people increased by 879,000. In the same period the number of
people in full-time employment fell by 421,000 while the number of
people in part-time employment rose by 709,000.

The employment rate of those between the ages of 16 and 64, which is the number of workers as a percentage of the total population in this age group, is below its record. It is currently 71.2 per cent, compared to a peak of 73.1 per cent.

And worrying signs remain in the monthly jobs figures, particularly the number of those who have been unemployed for a long time.

While unemployment is falling, this includes many who have been out of work for only a few weeks or months while long-term unemployment remains worryingly high.

The Prime Minister said long-term unemployment remains ‘stubbornly high’, adding: ‘It is still a problem.’

Of the 2.51million unemployed, 904,000 – more than a third – have been out of work for more than 12 months.

Neil Carberry, director for employment at the CBI business lobby group, said this long-term unemployment is ‘deeply troubling’.